Fuzzy's NaNoWriMo thread

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Fuzzy's NaNoWriMo thread - Nov 15th - 19,696 / 50,000 words

I've decided to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge, and I'm hoping you'll come along for the bumpy ride. I'll post my daily progress in this thread as I sprint from 0 to 50,000 words (look at all those zeros!). I'm not necessarily looking for real feedback or anything constructive, just a fun way to chronicle and connect as I write my 50k.

What the heck is NaNoWriMo?

from http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

The official NaNoWriMo site hosts forums too, but they would consider this piece smut and boot it out of the Erotic Fiction category. "Sexually explicit" material violates their terms of service. That won't do, at all.

As we're allowed to plan, outline, and plot prior to November 1st, I have a title and a little bundle of vague ideas. Here's the working title:

The Nut Gatherer

No. Not that sort of nut! Well, that sort of nut too. I'm looking to pen an eccentric erotic fantasy. It's Fantasy, but stylistically this will probably have more in common with traditional short lit. I've never been into mass market swords and sorcery. I'm a fan of Saroyan, Burroughs, and Hawthorne. That being said, the novella will follow a young elven woman of about 21 with a lint fetish who collects exotic tree nuts for a living. The sex will often be gratuitous -- I'm sort of in this for the cheap thrills.

In a half-hour or so I'll start putting pen to paper. My bat-crap crazy month begins at midnight. Please, feel free to say what you like and have a good time. I suspect that I'll need the company *cough* support group. As I go I'll update this page with the word count and some bookmark jump urls.

-fp

 

[l8bloom]

Fuzzy,

this is great. Mind if I model my page after yours?

L8.

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 2nd - 1,117 / 50,000 words

l8bloom - I encourage it!!

---------------------------------

The Nut Gatherers
By Fuzzy Peach

1 Road to Crawford

The hills of Crawford smelled like pine seed and wet paper. The thicket tangled fields outside the township reeked with a greasy film of spent pollen too small to see. The breeze was golden with it. The gusts that tousled the nearby larches were thick with it. The crack dry pine steeple crowning the skeletal downtown maze, just arcing over the far hill like a halo, was nearly invisible in it – that thorny mile of gray space between Stipple and Pith and the dead city was a lake of that suspended pollen. But, Stipple’s companion, Pith couldn’t even see it and Stipple just couldn’t stand it.

“Robinsberry pollen is plant cum,” said Stipple. She caught her lip turning upwards in twitched disgust. She felt goose-bumps break out and bristle up her arm and across her shoulders. “I mean, pollen’s always plant cum, but this smells like it. I can taste it, too.”

Pith’s shifting gait slowed to a stop and he watched Stipple pause to clear her throat and spit on the pebbled road. He slid his leather pack straps to the side and knelt to drop the bag.

“My feet hurt,” said Pith. “I want to buy shoes in Crawford. What else do you smell?” He stared at his dust brown and bare feet. He looked at Stipple. “You’ve found pecans near here before. Right? Pecans sell very well.”

Stipple spit. She sniffed.

“No,” she said. “There’s nothing else. It’s just pollen. I won’t be able to tell an acorn from an apple until the wind shifts. Besides, we need food right now. Shoes will wait.”

Stipple teased a whisper of hickory from the robinsberry breeze. She didn’t say anything about it to Pith. Even if she tracked the tree, it might be half-dead from drought or in a private garden. She didn’t want to encourage hope. She knew Pith would have to sell out that night or they would sleep hungry.

“You ready to go?” asked Pith. “I know no one can afford spices here, but the last batch is good. It’s really good.”

Pollen swirled off a stand of cathedral pine. Only Stipple could see it. She had the ‘green sight.’ Pith inherited other talents.

“I don’t think they’ll have the money or the food for that,” said Stipple. Sometimes people bought his mixes just to sweeten their water, but she knew it was a luxury. Even the water can by a luxury. “I don’t think they’re doing too well here. The only crop I’ve seen is pumpkin, and they were thirsty husks.”

“But, they’ll have money for sex,” replied Pith. “Right? They’ll starve themselves for a week to afford elves.”

“Well, some of them always do,” she said. She smiled loosely, just to comfort him. “Your bum’s just gotta still be sore.”

Pith didn’t smile and Stipple stopped trying. She thought about buying a bath. She could smell a horse chestnut nearby. A bundle of those might buy a bath. If they didn’t, she considered picking up the slack and letting Pith sit the night out. Maybe not. He made it too easy for her to back-out. People would pay more for an elf girl, but she would rather work ten times as hard gathering chestnuts.

Stipple thought a lot about that as they walked into town, kicking up the pollen. It smelled just like semen.

2. Time to spend

Stipple sat on shaky blue front steps. A yellow dog stared at her for five, ten minutes. She stared back and the world occasionally blinked out and back again. She narrowed her world to the dog’s eyes. It was a hungry dog -- she had counted the ribs. It was a good dog too, because it watched quietly while Stipple ate a handful of fermented currants.

She heard Pith again. She tightened her stare and the dog turned away. It scraped wet a patch of fur on it’s thigh with bared teeth. Fleas probably. She looked at her hands, turning them idly. They were dry red and bluish with currant juice. She felt a little stomach-sick from the rhythm of the front step as she swayed with the rest of the shack, with Pith, with the stranger, probably.

Twenty minutes ago the aging farmer said he didn’t buy whores and he only liked girls. Stipple tried to sell him some currants. He had said he would think about it. He also asked Stipple if she would share a few of the currants with him inside his shack. From across the porch the wheat-thin man had smelled like pig crap and he had scabs on his bare toes. When Stipple said no, Pith interrupted dutifully with a smile and a nod. Before they went inside, the guy said to Pith, “I guess you don’t look like much of a man, do you?”

Stipple ate another wine-sweet currant. She considered that when the men swear it’s just to exchange news, share a drink, talk God, then it’s always worse than with the ones who ask for ass by name. Stipple knew that after the two of them finished, Pith would be kicked outside, left unwashed, and probably threatened. Usually though, they would be paid. As for the man’s question, even for an elf, Pith was light and girly. Neither open sun or blown dust dulled his soft cheeks. His beard could never be more than a wash of blond peach-fuzz. His lips were a full blush. Hell, wind-blasted sand only seemed to polish him to a porcelain glamour. Stipple knew it and she mindfully tried to switch her track. This was like jealousy, and she didn’t like that. She considered how humans rarely kept control around elves and farmers like this one paid painfully close attention each and every time Pith licked those lips. She thought it ridiculous to be jealous of something that brought Pith nothing good anyhow.

Stipple looked past her hands. She liked her jeans. They used to be Pith’s. She licked her lips a bit to clear the dust. She liked wearing his jeans. She thought that Pith wore his student-blue acolyte robes like some kind of human dress. She’d been thinking of him more like a sister lately.

Stipple stood and stretched in a glare of afternoon sun. She thought it hard to believe that she used to sleep with him. She noticed that the noises had stopped. The dog’s ears were up. Stipple waited.

Pith stumbled out in a creak of screen door. The old man’s hand flashed in the door and a scattering of change followed. Stipple and Pith pawed around the deck until they had every coin.

-fp

 

[ms.read]

Hello Fuzzy.

Hey There, is this your first year doing this or a subsequent try? This is my first attempt so... here we go on this journey together, whattya say? I wont post what I actually write, here, everyday because I write a cornucopia of different things . Sometimes they're not even strung together. But, hopefully when i come out of this 50,00 words stronger, a piece will turn into something worthy of the lit histories. Happy typing!

 

[l8bloom]

... I wont post what I actually write, here, everyday because I write a cornucopia of different things . Sometimes they're not even strung together. But, hopefully when i come out of this 50,00 words stronger, a piece will turn into something worthy of the lit histories. Happy typing!

Cornucopias are GREAT. Go for it! My piece is entitled '30 stories in 30 days' so hey, it's gonna be all over the place. Away with thy inner editor! Foam at the mouth and flail at the keyboard! http://www.hystersisters.com/vb2/images/smilies/woohoo1.gif

Everyone will understand -- it's NaNo.

 

[Salvor-Hardon]

Go FUZZY Go!

Great start, and you have such a wild idea to start with. To quote from Stripes, "I wanna party with you cowgirl."

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 3rd - 2,436 / 50,000 words

ms.read - glad to have you along. This is my second time, but the first time I bailed early, very early. I'm a bit more prepared for the challenge this time. I hope!

l8bloom - you're damned right. she needs to get all foamy

Salvor-Hardon - lol Party on!

-----------------------------------------

“You bastards say a word and I’ll see both your asses in the stockades,” called the man from a window as they walked away.

“Get the hell off my farm.” They kept walking.

“Fucking punks.”

“Elf trash.”

Eventually he faded. Stipple counted 42 dirty cents. That would buy a bath. She saw that Pith kept holding his midsection.

3 Crawford proper

Most of the buildings were dark open and empty. Some had heaped trash in front and a moat of filth. Those were occupied. A toothless idiot waved a glad smile from a window. A short man with a hunch and a pair of short horns coughed next to a paint-scraped red wagon with two dead cats. The shadows were long and the high hill beyond the town would block the sun well before the day’s rightful close.

Stipple shook a braid from her hair and scratched and combed it into a wild mess just to knock out the dust and pollen. She did this as they walked. They walked as quickly as they could. She fastened her hair up in a walnut-sized bun. She hid the bun under a boy’s sun-cap. Pith busied himself by hand-slapping his clothes clear of dust. They kept moving.

“It’s not much farther,” said Stipple. She took Pith’s thin fingers and walked with them. His hand was actually bigger than hers.

“I’m OK.”

“Not really,” said Stipple.

Pith kept pressure on his lower stomach. His hand was lost in his robe. Still, Stipple quickened the pace as they passed a half a dozen pipe-sucking dwarves with bushy eyebrows and no beards. They sat or kneeled at chess boards where they seemed to hang suspended in their own haze of smoke. The entire stretch of street smelled sweet like opium.

Stipple was glad she had her breasts bound in cloth. They would be the only elves here. There wasn’t much glass left hanging, but she caught their reflection here and there. They were like candles passing through a lightless powder hall.

-----​

“A room with a bed and a hot bath,” said Stipple to a literal hole in a wall. She held up a few coins to the rough-cut hand-sized keyhole. Flickering in the reddish dusky light like that, the money looked too damned precious to part with.

Before entering, Stipple waited while Pith threw up without noise and without bending over too much. He smiled at Stipple and wiped his mouth with his arm.

The elves followed a fat man with a slow squishy bounce who led them through the door and down dark halls. The man had an olive-brown human face, but he walked on unshod hooves that hit the floor as if they would tear through the bowed and cracked boards. Everything smelled like urine.

At their door, a monolithic arched thing in stained pine, they handed the man more coins than he deserved. The room was cheap, but she didn’t trust the town and thought it best to make the man happy.

“We don’t take visitors,” said Stipple to the keeper. “My friend is a sorcerer. Knock when the bath is ready and hot and then leave us be.”

The keeper left and Stipple dropped her pack and Pith’s pack too. Unburdened, her shoulders felt too much lighter and she stumbled to keep her balance.

Pith immediately curled himself up on the sheetless straw and sackcloth bed without a word.

The small room had no windows. Stipple was glad of it. Windows were dangerous and begged the cold. Oil lamps stunk like old fish, but they were safe. The bed, the floor, and the chamber pot told the whole story of the empty dusty room. Frayed wiring hung from the water-stained ceiling. Perhaps the room had electric light, a damned long time ago.

Stipple sat next to Pith. She took down her hair and undressed without standing. She left her underwear on. She wouldn’t trust that bed. The soft seat felt good. It smelled like urine too, but there in that cave of a building she finally stopped sniffing the damned pollen that surrounded the city. She made two neat piles of sand when she turned over her boots.

Red strap marks creased her breasts. She had decent breasts by human standards and uncomfortably big breasts according to elves back home in the wood. The open air felt good after being tied up for so long.

Pith stopped whimpering when she straightened him out and unwrapped his robes and kept his hands from his belly. He lay naked except for a shoe-sized dark purple and yellow bruise just below his navel.

“That fucker,” said Stipple.

“He told me not let him see it,” said Pith. He sounded better off than the bruise looked. “I forgot and turned the wrong way. He got spooked and said I did it on purpose.”

“He did this because he saw your cock? What did he expect?”

“They never say it, but most want to see it.”

“I thought so.”

“This guy wanted a girl. After booting back up, he kicked me. I don’t think I even tried to get out of the way. We’re lucky we were paid. He said he wouldn’t.” Pith closed his eyes and sunk a bit further into the bed.

Stipple bent forward and kissed the smooth skin around his shrunken and flopped cock. She pet his bruise very softly and took him in her mouth just to be pleasant. He stayed soft but stopped his restless shifting. His limp dick slipped and slid around in her mouth as she used her tongue to play with the smooth tip.

Stipple could feel a little grit against her teeth. He was pretty clean, but nothing escaped the dust. He gradually stiffened and she started to take him in farther, letting herself gag a little. She backed off after a few minutes and sucked the head while she stroked the base with one hand. The ridge of his head slipped back and forth under the pressure of her upper lip. She thought it must have been months since she last did this.

Stipple moved between his legs, kneeling and keeping her mouth pressed down on his cock. It wasn’t too big, but she could barely take half comfortably when she tried. As he responded weakly with his hips, she let herself gag and pushed her face into the smooth skin around his penis.

Stipple licked a finger and slid her hand under Pith’s balls. She felt around for his asshole. With a gentle pressure she rubbed the hole. She could feel a ring like it was swollen. It had been a long time, but he wasn’t the same at all. Pith spread his legs and held them back. She sucked sloppy and hard at his cock.

The door shook with a single hammer knock and the keeper called for the bath. Stipple didn’t respond. She pushed two fingers very slowly into Pith’s hole. The whole area felt soft and loose. She was afraid to look.

Pith groaned in either pain or pleasure. His bruised stomach had to hurt. His asshole had to be sore too.

“Pith?” She paused. Is this ok?”

“Push up.”

Stipple moved her fingers deeper into his ass. She couldn’t believe how loose he was. She buried her head into his midsection and curled her fingers upwards, feeling for the spot that used to make him shoot.

Stipple pulled back as Pith started to burst into her throat, down the length of her tongue, and then across her lips. She milked him gently with a slippery hand and kept swallowing until she didn’t taste him anymore. She wasn’t a fan of cum, but swallowing was just easier. She noticed there was a little blood on her fingers.

“C’mon. Let’s take a bath.”

-fp

 

[THROBBS]

I am generally too lazy to read much. I am glad I took the time. I am enjoying this as much as your illustrations!

The title reminded me of one of my favorite artists...
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nut_Gatherers
I have seen it several times, as it is only an hour away.

Perhaps the painting is not of two young girls but of a girl elf and a feminine boy elf, Stipple and Pith, in younger and better times?

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

THROBBS - Glad to see you here. You're too damned smart for your own good I purposely borrowed the translated title ( was trying to think of Nut this and Nut that and then hit Nut Gatherer and remembered the painting and went with Nut Gatherers), but I didn't think of the connection to the pair of them. They grew up together, so that could have been them a long time back. He used to look more manly though Conceptually, that certainly works.

-fp

 

[THROBBS]

Not a matter of "Smartness"... only familiarity. I just grew up with that painting.

 

[GentleSub_Ivy]

Go Fuzzy! Good luck with NaNoWriMo. I considered trying my hand at it this year but wimped out.

Have fun and your story sounds delicious.

 

[ms.read]

Yippee! I actually finished a story! Now- Onto the next one.

1. Nonconsent anal/Light BDSM between Student and Teacher. Whattya think?

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 3rd again - 2,847 / 50,000 words

THROBBS - Lucky!

GentleSub_Ivy - Thx for the support. Why not try a partial nano?

ms.read - Congrats. That sounds like a memorable lesson. What's next?

-----small update--going to take a break for a bit------------

4 A delicate pursuit

A train shook the tiny room for a quarter of an hour. Stipple saw grains of sand dancing to the heavy vibrations. Half asleep and having just lit a single oil lamp, she watched the passive frenzy roil across the floor as she licked the dry sleep from her mouth. The floor calmed. The whistling and rumbling performance ended. She rolled over.

Pith slept beside her on the floor, covered in their gray wool blanket from home. She slept on top of her share. She wasn’t cold and wouldn’t dare touch the floor. The empty bed beside them had bugs. They were little and red and each burst into a tiny dot of blood when brushed away.

Amongst the dirt and old cob silk, the floor had some honest balls of lint. One was a red and stringy bit strangled by some blue thread. Another was a white puff. Maybe it was cotton.

Stipple pulled her pack closer. She stashed the new lint away in a small metal tin full of little colored puffs. She then pulled a neatly folded paper from a zippered front pocket. She counted the folds out of bored habit as she opened the paper. Thirty-five dollars round trip to Hanover. She puffed some loose hair from in front of her eyes. They only needed one way tickets. She blew again.

She loved the detail in the ad. People in fancy hats waved from the deck. Red, at least she imaged they were red, flags streamed from the stern. She had ripped the half-page from a newspaper last week. Hanover was a real city, a civilized place on the edge of the rain belt. Any city on that side of the water would do, but Pith said they had a school of alteration – if he could ever afford it, his next set of robes were to be white. She remembered that at only nineteen he learned the cantrip that set their cake ablaze and melted all the wax. Formally, he never made it any farther than that. They had to leave later that same month.

Stipple left the paper unfolded and curled up beside Pith. She was cold and his side was warm. She blew at his thin blond hair. He wrinkled his face but slept on in soft measured breaths. These were gray days in yellow dust. She nodded to herself in tired confusion. She let out her own breath and fell back toward sleep.

5. Electric light

-fp

 

[THROBBS]

I'm thinking Ch.5 is nearly here!

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Chapter 5 is a long one. I went to the art store.

-fp

 

[THROBBS]

Chapter 5 is a long one. I went to the art store.

-fp

OOOOO!! I LOVE going to the Art Store!... Like Lee's.

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 3rd once again - 3,237 / 50,000 words

THROBBS - dick blick

-------------------------------

first third? of chapter five

5. Electric light

“It’s dark today,” said Pith.

“I turned out the lamp. I’ve been up for a while.”

“Can we light it?”

“Sure.”

Stipple counted her breaths through matchlight, sulphur, oil light, and full color. She pressed out the match against the wall. She felt responsible for the color -- the blackened brown boards and washed gray walls framed a pillow-sheet span of orange laid out on the floor. The cloth was covered with a collection of brightly colored bottles, vials, and ripped-cloth satchels.

“Your unborn grove,” said Pith.

“Yeah.” Stipple leaned over the collection. “I added the weird maple seeds from the day before yesterday. They’re in the green jar.”

“The fire red one?”

“Yeah. That was a very red maple.”

“Are you hungry?” asked Pith as he explored his pack.

“I counted our savings too,” said Stipple.

“Eleven dollars and twenty-three cents.”

“Yeah.” Stipple rolled her grove back up and wrapped a braided cloth around the bundle. She tucked the end in under itself. It took several minutes to arrange her pack so that she could fit the roll between a half-dozen lumpy sacks and bundles in her bag. She sighed and smiled.

“Stipple, you need to part with some of that other stuff. It’s heavy.”

She nodded. She knelt beside the bag. She fidgeted with her lips. “The nutmeg will last, but the black walnuts smell and I know no one wants them. We’ll need the acorns if we get hungry enough. The hazelnuts will sell, if we find the right buyer. I have three bags. That should equal about… Well, it will help”

“Yeah,” said Pith.

Stipple stopped. She didn’t look up. “Not much. I know”

“Less than one of my cantrip teas,” said Pith. His eyes were a bit wider than usual. “And, even if they all sold, I bet you could get more than that in an hour.”

“Yeah. Stipple nodded.

“This won’t last forever.”

“I know. It’s all right. I’ll do it. Two dollars?”

“Five.”

“You think?”

“We can go back to that gabled house.”

“He turned us down.”

“That was a year ago, and he turned me down.”

Stipple looked through Pith’s bag for some of her old clothes. She found ribbons. She found some incense.

Twenty minutes later they ate some hazelnuts and unhooked the door.

“You look good,” said Pith.

Stipple turned-out the oil lamp and they locked the room.

-----

 

[ms.read]

A thought for my next story

HOW TO: Release The Tension

A young woman who while masturbating with a few toys, fantasizes about doing sadistic/masochistic(not sure which) things to coworker and/or boss in order to cope in the hostile environment she encounters at work.

Whattya think?

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 4th - 6,546 / 50,000 words

ms.read - I bet a lot of people can relate the that *twiddles thumbs*

---continuing chapter 5-----------------

Stipple turned-out the oil lamp and they locked the room.

-----
Crude wooden beams and ties held the house together as if it were bound in a net. For Crawford, maintenance alone was a sign of real wealth. The pair approached the three story patchwork house through an open high gate of tar-painted timbers. They shuffled down a slate path. Herbs grew in a heavy thick on either side of the path.

“Those are new,” said Pith.

“I don’t recognize half of them.” Stipple isolated one spicy perfumed scent amongst the others and followed it down to a stalk of white with short branches and spherical flower-head dusted in deep red. She stopped and looked closer. The crimson specks were tiny little five pointed flowers. She decided to take a bit as they left. “I have no idea what some of this stuff is.”

The short path dumped them at a hollow in the wall where a large wooden door slathered in pitch stood crooked and too small in its frame.

Stipple felt suddenly naked. She wore a very decent, although low, green dress embroidered with a rainbow of small flowers spiraling around in a traditional pattern. Her chemise was comfortable and her boots felt safe, if not a bit awkward with the dress.

It was her hair. She wasn’t used to wearing her hair in a way that showed off her ears. In this place they were an advertisement. The first time Pith and her met a human he asked, “every elf is a thief, a sorcerer, and a whore. Which one are you today?” Others were not so pleasant.

“Should we knock?” asked Stipple.

“I already did.”

“Oh.”

The simple iron knocker was set very low, barely reaching their chests. Stipple stared at it as it flew away from her. The door swung back. A short man with a long gray beard, a loose purple velvet tunic, and black slits for eyes stepped hard and fast against the stoop. This was a dwarf, not a man.

“We sell exotic teas and nuts from the woods of Katahdin,” said Stipple. She curtseyed low and Pith did the same. This wasn’t the human that had been living in the house last year.

Pith produced a roll of black cloth and spread it across the slate stone at the foot of the dwarf. At least a hundred of muslin cloth tea satchels were loosely stitched to the cloth. An alphabet of painted red symbols stretched across the grid of satchels. Stipple looked at the dwarf. He looked up at her with those dead slit eyes.

“I ask you, said Pith. “When was the last time you had roasted turkey? Have you ever tried an apple cobbler? How much do you like butter-cream? These teas are those, and I have spices too.”

“Put em’ away and come inside,” said the dwarf. He spoke clear but with an accent Stipple did not know. He walked away from them and down a dark hall, limping slightly.

“He didn’t take his eyes off you,” said Pith. He packed up his teas and followed after the dwarf.

Stipple noticed Pith ease away from an open doorway as he passed by it down the hall. He looked back at her and continued around a corner. Stipple passed the door and saw it too. Beside the bright light of a small and warped window sat an enormous man in pants and suspenders with bare arms and belly. He sat on a tiny stool. Stipple could only see the legs. His hands like dinner plates rested on a small table set with jars and piles of colored powder. He held a very small spoon between his middle and index fingers. In his right hand he had a small paper envelope.

“Stipple?” said Pith. He touched her arm.

The man’s bald grayish head was an anvil pivoted on his blocky neck and he turned to the doorway where they stood. He had a flat nose. His mouth was a hinged bucket with two blunt teeth poking up in the corners. He turned lethargically back to face his work. Stipple noticed that he wore a circlet like a narrow prisoners shackle around his neck – a short chain of just four links hung from the back. The six inch chain ended in a rough black marble the size of a chestnut. Pith gently pulled Stipple away from the door. They moved further into the hallway.

Barely enough to distract from the giant by the window, Stipple realized the hall had electric light. Hanging from the ceiling amongst the peeling paint was a dim orange bulb that flickered and whined. The hall increasingly smelled of wet and mold, like cellar with standing water.

The corridor emptied into a room with a high ceiling, open to the second floor. Light came from a large window up above, separated into a fan of white spade-like sections and gray clouds above. A wide staircase curved upstairs from the center of the room. Across from them were double doors crossed with boards. Chains hung like garland across the barrier. A spotted and visibly mildewed matching red chair and couch leaned against the far wall. The dwarf sat in the chair. He was packing a pipe with a purple mulch. He fingers were fat and stubby. His beard hung over the edge of the chair and between his legs. His pants were knee high and his legs were a crush of umber and long spindly hairs. His riding boots hung inches from the floor.

No one spoke. The dwarf put his unlit pipe to his mouth. He pulled and the bowl flared for a moment and glowed red. The light revealed his eyes, intense and gray behind the slits.

“We have nuts too,” said Stipple. The dwarf stared at her.

Pith rolled out his teas. He unloaded some canisters from his pack.
“Boy, are those sawdust teas?” asked the dwarf. The dwarf continued to stare at Stipple. “Are you trying to sell me sawdust and flavor cantrip?”

Pith stood. “Yes, but they are very, very good.”

“Anything else? You are an awkward pair. ”

“We have spices too. They’re like the teas.”

“And, they’ll be tasteless shit in a week?” The dwarf broke his stare. He waved at Pith in gestured dismissal. “You’re not stealing from me, boy. How old are you two?”

“Twenty one. Us both.”

“I’m two hundred and thirty-one years old,” said the dwarf. “Get the fuck out of my house. Leave that bundle of salt, for my trouble.”

Stipple stepped forward. “Five dollars,” she said. Stipple stared at the little dwarf and froze.

The dwarf pulled at his pipe and smiled until his eyes disappeared. “My gut. You really are awkward. Three dollars.”

“Four,” said Stipple. She didn’t mean to go so low.

“Five then. You’ll be on your knees for a dollar if that’s how you bargain.” The dwarf stood. He had a dry laugh. “Boy, you sit here. Don’t go where you don’t belong and don’t bother us.”

Pith nodded. He had gathered up his bags.

“Girl, follow me. And, for day’s sake, relax.”

-----

Stipple counted her breaths and held them and did try to relax. Her dress hung by the door on a curved hook hanging from the ceiling. The room was clean, the rugs were thick, and tapestries covered two walls. This place was nothing like the rest of the house. Over the bed was hung an unrecognizable trophy head, like a bulbous and watchful glass-eyed horse. The tables and the chair upon which she sat were polished and dark. Stipple had sniffed the table, but there was nothing but wax and pipe smoke. Light came from an electric bulb suspended on a cable in the center of the room. The bed hung low on high posts, almost touching the floor. A variety of soft skins crowded the bed. Stipple did not relax.

The dwarf was in an adjoining room where Stipple heard water in a basin. She wore only her chemise. Having unbraided her hair, she arranged it over her shoulders and waited.

Stipple had no thoughts beyond the pattern of light under the door, a gargling, and the tendrils of strong fresh mint. However, she did fix upon a curious thing on the desk beside the door. A black sphere like the balls caravan people used for scrying sat upon a fold of cloth.

Little gold ribbons flecked the smooth reflective skin of the sphere. Beside it lay a letter opener. The handle tip looked like a starred jewel and could easily be a ruby. On a nightstand there were coins, gold dollars even. She felt sure there were at least twenty. She saw silver candlesticks, reading glasses, decorative blades, and white pointed sticks like ivory or opal on the wall beside the door and behind her dress.

When he returned the dwarf carried a pile of clothes. He wore only white underclothes and his feet were bare. His beard was pinned up under his chin and his hair was slicked back. He smelled like soap and dry sage. He laid the neat bundle on the side of the bed and took off several rings. He worked a black circlet from his wrist. These things he placed on the pile. Dangling from the circlet like a charm was a rough black stone, a small version of the one Stipple saw on the giant.

She stood and the dwarf took her forearms, holding them with care but firmly and pressed against her sides. He pulled her down to him and then further, until she kneeled. He pushed his face into her cheek, approximating a kiss with hard pursed and dry lips. Stipple lifted her head, letting him at her neck, just to get him off her face.

He pulled at the neck of the chemise. His other hand fondled her breasts, flicking at her nipples through the fabric. He licked her neck and strained the collar of the chemise by trying to force a hand down through it. Stipple pulled the under-gown out from her legs and lifted it over her head. The dwarf stood back and stared. He licked his thin lips over and over. Stipple imagined he was unaware of the habit. She stood.

He moved to her quickly. He slapped one hand against her mound. It was fast. Stipple flinched. He cupped her while his other hand closed about her back. The old dwarf hugged her against him. He bent her forward and she felt his mouth gum and paw and pinch her right nipple. He switched, leaving her breast wet. He held her nipple between his teeth while he cupped her areola with sloppy extended lips. He kept his hand against her back, holding her in place against his mouth.

He rubbed one fat finger between her lips as he cradled and stroked the whole area. Stipple felt him grinding against her, just above the knee. He was hard like a broom handle or a club, not like a cock.

“Are you experienced?” he asked. He sucked widely and open-mouthed around her areolas, alternating and lapping at the nipples. Stipple’s breasts closed to an imperfect and vague cone with a puffy mound that the dwarf kept sucking.

“No.” said Stipple. Memories of nights with Pith, others, flooded but they were nothing like this.

Relax.” said the dwarf as he curled a finger up and pushed into her. Stipple choked for moment. He pushed in little jerks until he couldn’t push farther.

“You’re too dry. Get on the bed.”

Stipple sat down on the fur covers and moved back to lay flat. He fell to his knees on the floor between her feet. He lifted her legs up and pulled her across the bed until she felt her ass hit his chest. She lifted her head. He had removed his shirt, probably all his clothes. He had a thick nap of gray hair.

She heard him gather and felt spit and worse dribbling onto her. She wanted to protest at the sound of him clearing his throat, but his hand was on her, spreading and wiping. He held her legs back and up, draped over an arm.

“You’re smooth. There’s nothing but fuzz.” He laughed like he’d won something.

Elves had hair, and even more down there, but it’s almost always lighter and short and never rough like a human beard.

He wiped his fingers up and down the slit. Two chubby fingers worked into her, too fast. She gave no reaction, just turned her head and closed her eyes.

He lifted her back farther. She felt his fingers twist and his thumb pushed against her asshole. She hadn’t thought of that. The dwarf pushed his thumb unceremoniously inside her and began working it back and forth.

The feeling hit her in two delayed waves. She had an immediate pinch and a dull awful red shock of pain. She involuntarily squirmed back from him and he squeezed, pinching her between his fingers in her pussy and thumb in her ass. He pushed forward and kept digging his thumb in further, trying to force the knuckle.

She became aware that her nipples were sore and realized the dwarf had been slapping and pinching her tits. She began to give up, letting go to an attack that hit her from too many angles. She physically relaxed. She followed his lead as he flipped her around. For a moment he wasn’t in her at all and she took a deep and full breath. She tightened when he touched his hand to her side.

He scooped her off the bed with an arm slipped under her belly. He was strong and not just for his size. With her legs hanging off the bed and her fingers clenching a fur blanket she felt his cock pressing up across her belly.

She hadn’t seen it, but it felt wet down the length and too hard. Holding her hips at the bend of her legs, Stipple felt him move her into position. He pressed his head just between the flesh of the outer lips. Without exploring further, he pulled her back.

Stipples pussy stretched fast around his cock. It burned immediately. He pivoted against her driving it further, uncomfortably, against her back wall. She let go of the sheets. She felt words interrupted that caught on her tongue. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to say.

He rocked against her, but he didn’t really fuck her. He held her. He held her tight.

The burn at the entrance began to increase. She felt a real and growing pressure. Stipple turned to see if he was forcing in a finger or anything else along with his cock. She saw only a look of closed-eye determination on the dwarf’s tightened face. The pressure continued to build, as if something from inside were pushing against the entrance.

“What are you doing?” asked Stipple.

“Relax. Have you never had a dwarf?”

It felt like a medicine ball had blown to size inside of her. She thought she would burst.

The dwarf relaxed his grip on her hips. Stipple felt hung almost solely by his cock. Beyond the pressure just behind the entrance, a heat was building further inside her. She started to moan in displeasure. She heard herself only faintly but she didn’t like the sound of her own voice.

The entrance itself didn’t feel stretched, but just beyond it there was a horrible knot of pressure like he had swelled-up to ten times his original size.

Stipple felt alarm, then fear as the pressure increased. Like a tangible thing, as a hideous chill, panic ran up her body and seized her chest. She began sweating and drew short quick breaths.

She twisted and pushed at the floor. The two of them fell against the bed. Sudden pain seized her abdomen, so strong it was numbing. She pawed and pulled at the bed, lurching the weight on her back forward.

The hard weight of him hit her. His elbow pressed between her should blades and buried her against the bed. All the time their bodies were tied together. Through noiseless tears and labored breath she looked back at him but saw he was concentrating. She saw him concentrating on her arm and the pen-sized dagger between his fingers dragging, carving, a red line across her skin. The blade dripped with a viscous blue oil that flowed across the cut as if from pen to paper.

Stipple screamed in three sharp bursts. Her head hit the bed. Stipple felt the cry and the words well up, but her mouth didn’t move. Her arms wouldn’t move. She felt everything, but she moved only, painfully, in her mind. She continued to struggle. Her body didn’t respond. She thought that somewhere else there was a woman flailing in anger but not her and not this body.

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t move except to take his elbow from her back. “We just swell, but only as wide as you can stretch. You’re all right. You know you’re all right.”

Seconds screamed by. She cramped. Her body felt full of a tremendous heat.

He started again in a low voice. “It’s going down. I’ll pull out when I can. You’ll start moving soon too. Just don’t panic.”

Her breaths came shallow and her eyelids fluttered in a dance of anger activity and sleep. After a time the swelling in her abdomen did begin to release, but it wasn’t happening fast.

“You are going to leak for a while. And, there’s some blood.”

Stipples right arm began to shake and finally move as she willed it. His arm came down on hers. She saw his hand was bloody. She moved her one limb as best she could but the ability faded. He pet her forehead with his hand. It was blood marbled in something like semen. The scent was too strong for her and laced with iron. Then, like an apple on a pull the dwarf’s penis tugged beyond its widest point and Stipple felt her body eject his cock.

A flood of hot liquid gushed from her. It ran down her legs. She felt broken and stretched. The dwarf moved to sit beside her. He started to rub the slippery and thin cum all over her ass cheeks, between them and over her back. “You must feel better.”

He was out of breath. “If I knew that you didn’t know, I would have told you. That always happens. You shouldn’t have spooked.” She didn’t believe him. A steady stream of semen still ran from her sore and stretched hole. The air was thick with it, like wet paper.

The bed shifted as he stepped in front of her, her head just laying upon it’s side, completely immobile. He squatted naked in front of her. His cock bobbed in front of her. The tip was shiny with cum and blood. It dripped a thin line of semen. The dwarf wiggled it about and up and down as if showing it off. The head and length looked like any other cock except with less definition and tighter more transparent skin. But right before the base the cock formed a distinctive bulge like a fist-sized ball, like a snake that had swallowed an apple. Stipple wondered how big it was before it went down enough to pull out. She wanted to knock the dwarf off the bed and step on his disgusting cock. She wanted to move so badly.

The dwarf dropped to his knees. He leaned forward and the penis parted her paralyzed and loose lips and teeth. He slid out. He moved the tip across her lips, over her nose, and back into her mouth. He slid in deeper, pressing against the back of her throat. She couldn’t gag. For a moment she couldn’t breath. He withdrew, leaving her tongue salty and bitter, almost metallic. The dwarf stood and walked across the bed and out of her view.

“Don’t worry. I’ll pay you double, for your troubles.”

Sitting beside her, he started exploring her ass, pushing against her butthole with a cum-slick, and probably bloody, finger. He slipped it inside. Stipple concentrated on trying to move. It did hurt, but she didn’t care so much about that anymore. Two fingers slid in, stretching her asshole wide. She had never had more than one of Pith’s fingers back there and the stretch felt like ropeburn. The dwarf jacked his hand up and down rapidly.

The bedroom door opened.

Like watching story play out in the minds eye Pith charged into the room with a burst of daylight and cool air. In slow backwards time like one feels in a fall before the hit, she saw Pith stagger. He hit the wall with his hands shielding his face and horror like Stipple never knew and his face moved so slowly and Stipple saw in his contorted expression what only he could see and it was blood and her death and a knife and naked grinning dwarf with his fingers in her ass. Stipple closed her eyes. They closed. They opened and Pith was throwing darts like his arm was wound around a string untangling and they kept flying. Then the bed shook like the dwarf had leaped. Pith did leap, out of her view and towards the dwarf. Something fell, something broke, and the dwarf kept screaming.

“She’s all right. She’s all right,” screamed the dwarf. “She’s all right.” And coughing. “She’s all right.” Vomiting and black thuds like boots on bone and no more screaming.

-fp

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 6th - 8,292 / 50,000 words

btw, I've been adding my edits (at least some of them) to the previous posts. So, there may be some evolution going on underfoot.


also, I'm a day behind. I had some unavoidable plans yesterday. I'm not worried about it. *gulp*

-----------------

6. Alone again (I doubt I'll keep most of the chapter names. I'll probably just number them.)

Stipple watched Pith cry for at least five long, awful minutes. He cried with angry red shakes and eyes that could not be dammed. He held her, looking down at her. Stipple could do nothing but occasionally blink and Pith missed it each time. If she hadn’t moved her arm earlier she might have assumed she was dead. Still, she thought that would be the way though, never assuming death. When it came, would it have to be proved? Would an immobile eternity be evidence enough? Probably not.

Stipple heard an awful groan. It was her own.

Pith heard it too, and he moved her to the bed and began touching her all over. He felt for a pulse in her arms and her neck. He put his ear to her chest. He tugged at her face and exercised her legs as if they were a bellows with which he could alight a spark.

“Ith?”

“Tell me you can hear me. Say something.” He took her back up in her arms. He had no expression left. The tears kept coming.

“I can’t move.”

“You’re moving your lips,” said Pith.

“All right.”

“You’re covered in blood.” Pith hugged her close and didn’t speak.

“There’s blood everywhere? What did you do to him?” Her jaw moved more freely now.

“No. Your back and your arms and your legs. I love you.”

“He probably spread it around,” said Stipple. She realized she could feel her fingers flexing.

“He’s dead,” said Pith. He inspected her body with hands and palms nearly everywhere. “We have to go.”

“How do you know he’s dead?” Stipple. “What did you do to him?”

“You’re not cut anywhere. I don’t think you’re still actually bleeding down there anymore either.”

“You killed him?”

“The darts were only supposed to make him sleep. I think I used too many, or I hit him afterwards.” Pith was off the bed and gathering Stipple’s clothes.

She regained her strength in shivering waves. With effort close to reanimation she lifted herself up with her arms and torso. She could see that Pith had blood smeared all over his tunic and pants. Stipple turned her head and sat up. The naked dwarf lay on his back beside a half-shattered vase and cracked table. A dozen darts stuck out from his arms and chest. A spider-like darker patch of skin radiated from each buried dart. His mouth was wide like a dry fish.

Stipple flinched when Pith put his hands on both her shoulders. “What did he do to you? I was so sure you were dead. You were dead. You didn’t move or breathe.”

“I panicked and he cut me. I couldn’t move after that.”

“I don’t understand.” Pith went to the door and opened it a crack. He looked and shut it quietly.

“I don’t know.” As pins and needles seized her, she began to dress. She moved carefully. “He must have had the blade ready with that stuff.”

Pith began to circle the room. He had the dwarf’s gold in both hands. “So, he planned it.”

“Maybe. Are we robbing him too?”

“Stipple,” said Pith. “I already killed him. He’s a magic user too. I’m sure of it. Something kept me off those stairs.”

“Take that bracelet with the stone,” said Stipple. “It has something to do with the giant.”

“That was an ogre, but I haven’t seen him since we came in. Have you seen any books? Something like my own.”

“Take the circlet.”

“I think I rescued you,” said Pith.

“I know. You probably did.”

Stipple watched Pith take apart a pillow and fill the sack. She tightened her shoes. “Let’s not take more than we can carry, more than we can hide.”

-------

Carrying a sack and wearing bloody clothes, the elves ran past the room where they had seen the ogre. They slipped through the door and down the slate path. They ran into the cobble and dirt street. The house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac. Stipple didn’t think the few other houses on this road were occupied. One was complete rubble. Another was mostly burned.

“Can you run?” asked Pith.”

“Yes.”

The hinges of the gate behind them squealed. The ogre, gray and lopsided, slouched at the end of the slate path. He frowned wide and open-mouthed. His fists clenched. He stood hunched at almost ten feet.

“Let’s cut through here,” said Pith.

The pair skimmed a field with many burned leafless oaks and long fallen logs, also burned. Stipple had a hard time of it. She staggered as she ran and her abdomen stung and cramped. They came down a thorny hill into a row of tighter buildings.

Stipple looked back, expecting and failing to see the ogre come rushing over the hilltop. The two of them took off through an alley, winding through the dead city.

“We passed a guard,” said Stipple.

“Who,” said Pith. “I didn’t see.” They slowed to a fast walk. Neither of them had their breath.

“I don’t know. It looked like a uniform.” They started a full run again.

-----

The keeper didn’t ask any questions. He let them in, barely rising from a stool by the door. Back in their room they took up the rest of their things onto the bed and emptied the pillowcases.

“Just cram it all in anywhere,” said Stipple.

“I wish we saw the other rooms.”

“We weren’t alone up there. I’m glad we left.”

“I didn’t like the noises, but I’m willing to go back for the books.”

“I’m not going back,” said Stipple. She couldn’t find the small blade he cut her with, but Stipple tucked the star-jeweled dagger under her belt. She had no idea how to use it. She hurried along with Pith to gather the rest of the gear into their packs and pouches.

There was no debate to be had about leaving. Two elves stole into town, passed themselves off as whores, murdered some rich fuck, and ran through the streets with bags of loot. Stipple doubted that anyone saw them. That didn’t matter much. They were suspects by default.

A dull thud punctuated the frantic silence. Dust drifted from the ceiling and into the oil-light. Another thud shook the room. Neither Pith nor Stipple spoke, but they doubled their efforts. Another boom and the walls visibly swayed.

Yells of men and screams picked up through the thin walls. A great tearing and thunder of wood sounded from everywhere at once.

Stipple and Pith burst down the hall, joining a thin thread of people running for the street. Pith was still tucking in a clean tunic. His pants were bloody.

From the street they saw no giant but many others fleeing the inn. They were mostly men, half-naked and thin. A great orchestra of disassembly came from the center of the building. The walls sagged. A bulge grew in the middle of the two story building. It looked like a stand of trees right before a bull-moose would break through.

They ran away from the inn, the noises, and the crowd. They sprinted by two fat guards. Both stopped smoking and watched the pair pass. They traded glances, probably considering a pursuit. Elves were always targets. They were also fast.

The northern edge of the city was terrible mess of dead buildings, tents, and rust. Beyond a field of metal drums, the town broke down into a field of robinsberry bushes and a steep decline. Stipple felt like she had crawled out of her own coffin.

Pith took her hand.

Tied together they ran down the big hill and away from Crawford. Somehow they both laughed. They laughed like they did growing up, before everything got so damned complicated. They jumped over the tracks and slid down an embankment. They found a dry riverbed lined with sycamores and followed it for hours.

-----

The empty bed they followed brought them to a trickling green gem of a river where they set a dark camp of pine boughs. Their only real defense was Pith’s paper-thin illusion. He used up the last of his copper powder to cast it. If one didn’t expect to see otherwise, the small camp would look like the rest of the scraggy brush. Occasionally, it worked. At least Stipple found some comfort in the long chant Pith repeated as he sealed the barrier.

They slept with the bracelet between them. When Stipple fell asleep Pith was still awake, staring at the tree canopy and the sky that filtered through the leaf cover.

7 Wild carrot

 

[fieryjen]

Go you!!

*insert cheerleader smiley here*

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 7th - 10,046 / 50,000 words

fieryjen - Thx! I appreciate the ra ra's

-----------------------------------------------

7 Wild carrots

Stipple woke first. It was early, but the light was good. She took up the bracelet and walked barefoot down to the brook. She squat down to pee by some lemongrass, digging her feet and toes into the sandy bank. It was a beautiful morning. The air was cool and the breeze soft. Between clouds Stipple saw unadulterated blue scrapes of sky. She walked a few feet to the water, testing it with her toes. It was clean and it smelled fresh. The dirt and sand washed from her toes.

Stipple ran up the bank to check on Pith. He was still asleep.

She ran back down to the brook and lifted off her dress. She set it on a rock by the water. She would wash it. She set the bracelet down on the dress. She kept her head up, knowing she was painted in dried blood and worse. She could feel it but had no desire to see it too.

Folding low over the water she put her hands in the stream and drank right from the surface. It was sweet and cold. Goosebumps broke over her body, stippling across her back and legs.

She sat up and washed herself in pooled handfuls that mirrored the blue stretch of sky above. The sun on her back was warm. Her feet were freezing. She could think of no ritual more sacred than this.

She walked in further and bent into the water, dunking her head. She tousled her hair under the water. She opened her eyes too. The bed was dark and painted in rich reds and earthy river moss.

She walked back to the camp. She shook her hair out. She wiped the water from her arms, her chest. She felt good. She was sore below and she had to concentrate on the moment, the sensory, or risk a flood of memory. But, she felt good.

Pith looked tired. When it mattered, he had shrugged off girlish façade Stipple had become so used to, had become somewhat sick of. She wondered who he would be when he woke. At the moment, his hair was filthy and his features sharp. He looked decidedly male.

They had always switched roles, led another, and played the others part when they had to. Stipple wondered if that’s the way it always was with twins. It seemed so cruel to be pushed so far from their home for something that came so naturally to them. If he looked like this when he woke, she decided that they should lie together again. It had been such a long time and it seemed like the right thing to do. She swore not to let yesterday define her.

Stipple explored the area a bit. She did so naked. The breeze was light and did not want to miss it by covering up. She also wasn’t sure what she wanted to wear. She was sick of dressing for travel. She missed Katahdin. She even missed their parents.

She found a patch of wild carrot dressed in lacey flower-tops that had yet to fully unfold. As she always had, before she pulled her handful she kissed each of the tiny purple dots atop the stalks. She did so for good luck and for the love of ritual.

8 Separations

The pair ate wild carrots. The carrots were young and mild without the woodiness they would develop later in the season.

Pith had bathed while Stipple washed some of their clothes. Now the clothes dried in the sun, draped over some low hawthorn branches that hung over the stream.

“We should wear them wet,” said Pith.

“I was going to say that too,” said Stipple.

They were both naked, but Pith was naked and wet too. Shivering a few times, he sat with his knees drawn up to his chest. Stipple had warmed. She still felt high off the clean air. The wind carried the smell a pungent sweetgum and distant sugar maples.

“So, we should leave the bracelet behind, said Pith.

“It really feels like something is coming. Doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“That thing couldn’t have just sniffed us out in the city. The whole town reeked.” Stipple leaned over Pith’s shoulder and sniffed at his ear. “We on the other hand, actually smell pretty good, thank you very much.”

“I think we’re rich. Not just for now either. If we can actually sell this stuff, we can go anywhere,” Pith snapped a carrot. He chewed slowly. A flat look washed across his face as Stipple curled up against him.

“Why so dark?” asked Stipple.

“You’re asking?” said Pith. He waited, as if for a response. “You were dead back there. I mean, you weren’t, but everything I knew was gone for while and I’m having a hard time getting it back.”

“Back? Here I am.” She moved around to his front, pushing her head between his knees and smiling a few inches from his expressionless face.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like I missed you.”

“We need to get dressed and go.”

“Can’t we do that another day?” asked Stipple.

She kissed his knees and his shins. She kissed his cock and balls. They hung in front of him, sticking up from his drawn legs, and they were cold.

“Stipple, I doubt this is a good time.”

She opened her mouth around his limp penis and stroked him softly with her tongue and mouth.

“I’m all right,” said Pith. “I don’t need anything.”

“I know,” said Stipple. She lay back on her hands and walked herself forward. She rubbed her bare pussy against his cock. She rubbed it up and down. She let the flaccid length of it squeeze between her outer lips.

Pith closed his eyes and didn’t move or speak. She continued. He said nothing but grew hard.

Stipple positioned herself against him and pushed very slowly against him. He wasn’t in, just pressing there. It hurt more than she thought it would. She had been sore all morning, but it wasn’t bad. This was far worse.

“How can you be so wet,” said Pith.

She moved closer and, without any assistance from him, she slipped him inside. It burned but Stipple didn’t flinch. It hurt, but he felt warm and she could bare it. “Pith?”

He shook his head and edged back, withdrawing. He stood, his cock pointed upward. He walked to their clothes and began to gather them.

Stipple sat on the pine needles. Tears came in awful slow waves. The weight of it all fell over her and she cried hard. Pith sat beside her. Through a blurry wash she could see that he had dressed. The rest of the world too was a blurry wash. He tried to kiss her on the mouth, but she pulled away. She hugged him tight and he let her take him up, holding him to her chest where he relaxed.

When she did let him kiss her, they laid back against the pine bed. At first they just touched and then they kissed again more deeply. When he pulled down his pants and guided her to him, their bodies pressed together, she shook her head.

“Too sore,” she said.

He nodded and kissed her neck.

Although she never had before, Stipple turned in his arms and pressed her ass to him, positioning his head against her asshole. At first he held only held her. He did so with his arms crossed over her breasts. Then he slipped his cock down further to her pussy and rubbed it wet between the lips and back to her asshole. He did this several times, rubbing back and forth between her holes. Stipple wiped lingering tears from her eyes and relaxed willingly.

Pith rolled her onto her stomach and moved down her back, kissing. He parted the cheeks of her ass. He licked by her pussy, passing upwards and across her asshole. He kissed it. His pushed his tongue against it. He left it wet with spit and stood up to kneel astride her.

With his legs on either side Stipple felt Pith guide his penis to her ass. He leaned forward and put his weight gently upon her back. Bringing his hips to her, he entered with slow steady pressure, never retreating, constantly pushing forward. She felt it stretch, but it wasn’t painful.

“Try pushing like you want me out instead of in,” said Pith.

She did, and his penis slipped deeper. She felt a different stretch further in, a little more vivid, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. She pushed again and felt her hole relax around his cock and he slid in until their bodies met. He gathered her arms up and they stayed like that.

When he began to move inside her she found that now it didn’t hurt at all. He was moaning atop her and soon found herself pushing back against him. In minutes she was kneeling with him behind her. It only hurt when he pulled back too far, and even then she loved the strong sense of him inside her. He moved a hand underneath her and rubbed the entire mound of her pussy in broad strokes.

He only lasted a few minutes, pushing uncomfortably deep inside her ass as he came. She ground against his hand until he withdrew. She wasn’t ready for it to end, but she didn’t ask for anything else. Instead she followed him down to the river.

They took one final wash in the stream and got dressed. A half hour after they had finished, her ass still felt like he had just pulled out. Pith’s face was quiet and cool as they gathered their things. Stipple wondered several times what he was thinking about. She asked too, but he wasn’t telling.

Their packs were heavy, but they planned to follow the stream. That at least that saved them from having to carry water. Stipple knew she could manage the extra weight if they needed it -- she felt stronger than she had in a long while. The nearest port would be at least a week away. She imagined that she would soon have a chance to her strength.

They hung the bracelet with the black charm from the hawthorn by the brook. It might just be superstition and coincidence, but Stipple still felt like that giant was lumbering after them, his necklace tied to the bracelet with unseen magical threads.

9 Raising the stakes

-fp

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 8th - 11,396 / 50,000 words

9 Pigments

The ogre did come. Twenty minutes from camp Stipple heard it first. Pith said it was a horse team and a carriage. Stipple thought it was a cadre of city guards. The sound grew so loud so fast that they had no time to seek proper cover. They had ducked under a scrub oak where they froze.

Now, with the ogre barely visible at the head of a noisy machine of dust, Stipple took Pith’s hand. She dashed through the other side of the scrub oak where the stream had been running in a steep gully. Stipple was caught by her own arm. She slipped on her backside. Pith was hanging onto the tree and holding her wrist. I am panicking, thought Stipple.

The ogre did not lumber. His legs ran high. His huge wet-black feet smacked the ground. His arms pumped and his shoulders jacked back and forth. He moved with a locomotive fury. Stipple pulled her legs back under the shrub. Pith stuck darts between the fingers of his left hand.

A boiling mesh of chain and debris pursued the juggernaut. He was bound to it by a wide belt shackling his waist. A dozen crows raced the giant, ducking in and out of the dust storm, completing the nightmare.

The ogres legs still came down in lead hammer throws, but the pace slowed. The ogre flung his arms out, thrown back against his momentum. He was stopping. He slowed to a high-stepping mimic of his earlier gait. He began to walk. And, he stared at the low tree where Stipple and Pith hid. His nostrils flared.

The crows dove into the mass trailing behind him. His train was a network of chain and masses the size of men. Those dusty masses became sleighs of crows. They ripped and they tossed food back into their crops. And the ogre did not notice. He moved with a bear-like economy.

“Don’t run,” said Pith.

“The trees,” said Stipple. “He can’t possibly climb chained to that. We’re panicking and I know it.”

“All right. The big pine there.” Pith dropped Stipple’s hand. “Now!”

They leaped together. Stipple ran so hard she felt dizzy. She hit the pine fast and jumped for a branch. Her palms smacked a limb and her feet swept out before her. She pulled herself up as her legs swung back. Scrambling over the branch she realized Pith was still in the dust cloud with the ogre. She saw his darts in the dirt. Pith was bent over swinging his pack like a badger.

“Pith!”

The ogre swung back. And again. He howled a low and whiny tremolo. Pith stabbed at the giant with a clutched dart.

The ogres massive hand hit Pith’s pack and pulled it up and back. Pith swung with the pack. He let go and tumbled in the dirt. A dozen crows scattered. Stipple could see that the chained mess around him was a team of rag bodies and bloody skin, bones, dirt.

Stipple reached Pith and, with his help, pulled him to his . She expected the ogres fists to crash through her, but she was still thinking and breathing so she ran with Pith back to the tree.

That massive engine of an ogre did not pursue. It sat. The pair began the climb, but the ogre sat in the dirt with Pith’s pack. They secured themselves in the branches. From their white pine ladder they watched the ogre dig into his own pocket, producing a crumpled envelop. He shook out Pith’s pack. The ogre moved quickly to pick up the little gilded lock box they had stolen from the dwarf. It looked like a snuff box in the ogre’s hands. He set it on the ground.

Leaning over the box like a toddler with a toy, the ogre squeezed it and it popped open. The box had two compartments. The ogre waved away a few encroaching crows. He pinched open his envelop and appeared to pour it into the box.

Pith tied little wire knots around balls of red wax. Stipple recognized the components. Pith was preparing to cast stink cantrips. They were usually used for pranks by student mages. Pith never made it to the really useful stuff.

The ogre tapped the envelope for almost a minute. Satisfied, he balled the envelope and put it back in his pocket. The ogre then very delicately lifted a little white ball from a pile on the other side of the box. He shut the box. He stood. Crows flew up in alarm and settled back down on the corpses. The dead things all wore neck shackles binding them to the chains. Half of the shackles were empty.

Nearly facing the tree, the ogre put his head back a bit and stuck out his tongue. He put the little white ball on his tongue. He closed upon it.

------

For several minutes Pith and Stipple speculated, made wild plans, and watched the ogre. After eating the little white thing he had stopped doing anything. He didn’t freeze up. He just mulled about. Sometimes he looked right at their spot in the trees. He would look away again, unconcerned.

Then, leaving the box on the ground, he turned and walked across and over the team of dead men, stepping on a few. Without much hurry the ogre walked back the way he came, his big arms swinging loose.

“I think he’s going home,” said Stipple. “Where is your other shoe?”

“He knew we were up here. Did you see that he still had on the neck circlet?”

“Yeah,” said Stipple. “It’s not the time, but do you see the little yellow flowers up there. Those are pine flowers.”

“He’s done now. Fucking hell. He’s like a golem.”

“All right. So, we’ll leave the box too,” said Stipple. She swung a bit in on the branches, with her feet secure and handholds radiating, pines were built for this.

“We could try something even better,” said Pith. He held a hand over his mouth. “It’s not far. I’ll beat him there.”

“You only have one boot. Is that it down there?”

“I think the laces fell apart. I’m going back for the circlet.”

Stipple lowered herself to his branch. “Pith? Even if it worked, we don’t need an ogre.”

“You don’t get it. That brute was the most valuable thing in the house. He can work, he can fight, and I know that wizards buy pets for protection.”

Stipple followed Pith down the tree. “What the hell do you need to buy?”

“Help me gather our things.”

“Stop it!”

“I’m not playing around. Let’s grab at what we were given.” He reassembled his pack on his own. “We can’t give up on this. It’s been practically handed to us. We sell the ogre and it’s the best schools for me and whatever it is that you want.”

“This is stupid. You have no idea how to use the circlet,” said Stipple.

“What exactly is it that you want anyway?” asked Pith. He stood, swinging his pack against his shoulders and walking against the momentum. He steadied himself and tightened the belt straps.

Stipple didn’t say anything and he walked away.

“I want to go home.”

She jogged after him.

------

The ogre saw them first. They were less than a hundred feet away. He had looked back and saw them and he did nothing. He just walked. They walked too, but Pith did it barefoot. One of his boot bottoms had dropped out in the run.

Pith laughed at the sight of the ogre. He pushed his blond hair over his ears and they walked faster. Stipple followed Pith in a sweeping arc through the brush and dried things, out of site of the stream. The ogre did notice them. He looked in their direction several times, but he kept going. His eyes were small holes in an asymmetric skull. The elves and the ogre walked parallel tracks, and they tried to outpace him.

When the pair returned to the stream bank they were well in front of the ogre. It had yet to break into a cloud of crows and fury or even quicken. It dragged its dead companions. It batted away crows. It walked steadily.

Pith broke into a run, pointing at the hawthorn. Stipple figured that his feet must be burning. They would blister soon.

Pith put on the bracelet before Stipple even joined him.


-fp

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

Nov 9th - 12,351 / 50,000 words

10 New shoes

“Pith?”

“Pith?” She shook his shoulders lightly. Scanning his face for a response. He stood numb. His eyes were open but only slightly.

She put her hand to his face and cheek.

“I’m taking the bracelet off you.”

Pith shook his head a few inches to either side.

Slowly Stipple turned. She turned to meet the sound of chains. The ogre was running. Stipple worked the bracelet off of Pith’s limp wrist. His eyes flashed open immediately. He shook his arms and moved like he was throwing water off.

“Stipple, it was wonderful.”

“C’mon, look out!” Stipple took his hand, pulling him into a run.

The ogre and his cape of corpses thundered past them. The wing beats of crows passed too. They watched the ogre smash through the copse of young trees beside the hawthorn. The chains caught a dead half-buried limb and ripped it up and it joined the procession. The ogre did not stop or slow. He was in a steady gentle run, chaos followed.

“Oh, that is amazing,” said Pith.

“I don’t understand.”

“You will. Leave it on me.” He took the bracelet back and slipped it on. His face went slack and his arms drooped.

The ogre stopped. He spun to face Stipple and Pith.

“Stipple,” said the ogre. His voice was very low. He was a hundred feet off, but he was casually loud. “Stipple!”

She could feel the words as much as hear them. She looked at Pith.

“Stipple, are my lips moving?” asked the ogre.

Pith’s lips were moving slightly.

“I can feel it. A little,” said the Ogre. He was walking closer. He looked so strong. His skin had the vague texture of a rough-cut headstone.

The ogre kneeled ten feet in front of her. He lowered his body to the dirt, unfolding his arm against the ground. Stipple approached him.

“Pith,” she said. “This is you.”

The ogre nodded. The skin of his face was loose. He had little ears. Stipple hadn’t noticed them. They were like human ears, but tiny.

Stipple backed away.

“You have to get that shackle belt off of him.” She looked away. “The mess is so awful It’s awful. Who were those men?” She rejoined Pith’s body.

“The ogre is here with me,” said the ogre. “He is so small and weak. He’s just a tiny voice. I can hear my own thoughts echo in this head. When I left it I was running, and it kept running. It’s an echo.”

“There’s a lock on the side,” said Stipple. “Let’s get that off first. What would happen if you came back?”

The ogre shrugged. “It will have the echo. I imagine it will continue. It’s hard to explain.”

“All right. Make him go away from us and then have him rip out the people and clean the chains in the water and dig a grave and then we’ll get the chains off, but make him go away from us first, in case.” The crows were awful. The picked like herring gulls on cracked muscles. “And, I mean, do all that with the echo if you can. Don’t do it yourself.”

The ogre walked away. He would be 12 feet tall if he didn’t slouch. Pith fumbled at his bracelet. He was close, but Stipple helped him take it off.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Yes.” He shivered. He beamed and shook his hands. “I can’t describe it. I was in there.”

The ogre continued off.

“It’s hard to feel anything in there, but I can see and hear. I mean, it’s like being numb. My stomach hurt though, at the sides by the chain. I could feel more and hear and see clearer when I walked closer to me.”

Stipple heard cracking and looked to the ogre. It was piling bodies. A head rolled from the pile. There was no blood. It didn’t roll far.

“The ogre is still in there. And, my body. Stipple, I can’t explain what it’s like to see you standing next to me. It could have been anyone, but I still had a small sense of myself, like a fantasy or a daydream of myself that I could pay attention too if I wanted. Otherwise, I was there. I was the ogre.”

“Look at him. He’s washing his chains,” said Stipple. “I wonder if he eats. He must eat a lot.”

“Yes. It was hungry.”

“Is he aware of us or what’s going on?”

“Barely. I think it’s like he’s having a bad dream and he came and went. I mean, it was really buried. I only mentioned the voice because it was there.”

The giant-kin began to dig. He did it bowlegged, throwing sand behind him. The earth moved fast under him.

“Does he have a name?” asked Stipple.”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s call him pigment.”

“After the powder?”

“Of course. The blue stuff though. He had red stuff and blue stuff, but I’d rather name him after the blue stuff.”

“It’s almost done,” said Pith.

“He’s very strong.” Stipple took the bracelet from Pith. She sniffed the rock. “It smells like coal. I think it’s just polished coal, but it’s very hard.”

“Maybe.” Pith took back the bracelet.

“He should take a bath too. I bet he can carry us.”


-fp

 

[l8bloom]

Good morning, fuzzy! Just stopping by to wish you a good day of writing.

L8.